I did a bunch of screenshots (which I'm not going to bore everyone with unless needed), and what I found was that I was mostly wrong. It is true that if you leave the depth chart and lineup alone and start a game, the AI will
not remove your injured starter from the lineup. However, it also won't let you continue into the game.
If you just sim a game and look at the box score, it does replace your starter with the reserve, and it does rearrange the lineup so that the backup player is not in the number 3 spot when they don't belong there.
I double-checked 6.5, and this is different behavior in the new game. And I like it!
__________________
Solonor's Groovy Computer Baseball League - Making baseball a
hobbit since 2003!
"Beings will come, Frodo. The one constant through all the years has been baseball. Middle Earth has rolled by like an army of Mumakil. It has been erased like a slate, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Frodo. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... beings will come Frodo. Beings will most definitely come." -
Gladden Field of Dreams